Business and book website: wordwhisperer.net
Author of SETTLE FOR BEST: SATISFY THE WINNER YOU WERE BORN TO BE; SERVAL SON: SPOTS & STRIPES FOREVER; DeFOREST KELLEY: A HARVEST OF MEMORIES; FLOATING AROUND HOLLYWOOD; LET NO DAY DAWN THAT THE ANIMALS CANNOT SHARE(order at Amazon); and THE ENDURING LEGACY OF DeFOREST KELLEY(order at http://store.payloadz.com/go?id=382995)

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

I was chatting to a Hollywood friend this evening and he reminded me of something I had completely forgotten: I was encouraged by several studio professionals to get a demo voiceover tape produced while I was down there!

(Smack myself in the forehead with the palm of my hand and call me an amnesiac chickenshit!)

Here's the story...

While I was living in Hollywood, I did one voiceover "on the fly" for a casting director at a major studio because an actress called in sick and everyone else was "on the set" and ready to roll. It was just one line...

I was an administrative assistant on the hit comedy TV show she was casting at the time. When she crooked her "come hither" finger at me and told me what she wanted me to do, I asked her, "Why me?"

She said, "Because every time I walk by this office, there is a different voice coming out of it, and it's always YOU! I know you can do what we need."

Fair enough. (I do tend to "act out" whatever I'm talking about, so the comment made sense, although I hadn't really thought much about it before she brought it to my attention. It's just the way I talk; I'm animated!)

So I went to the soundstage... and... much to my surprise... aced the gig.

One of the studio technicians, looking mighty pleased and surprised, told me, "You should do this for a living. You're a dream to direct. You nailed it."

His compatriots nodded. The casting director smiled and said, "See? What'd I tell you? You can do this... and you should. You're a natural."

Well, that felt really good, so I took several voiceover classes... tentatively... because it seemed far too good to be true...

My voiceover coach, Nigel Neale, quickly discovered that I had a perfect "teenaged boy's voice" and that teen boy voices were hot items in Hollywood animation. ding ding ding ding ding. I knew that Rocky the Flying Squirrel and Woody Woodpecker were both voiced by adult women with great teenaged boys voices, June Havoc and Mrs. Walter Lantz respectively.

Nigel said I should get a demo made and then move to Seattle to get discovered, because it would take me five years to be discovered in Hollywood (because voice demo tapes are stacked to the ceiling in every casting director's office in Hollywood.) It never even occurred to me that I already had an "in" with someone inside the industry: the casting director who had hijacked me just weeks earlier! (What a dumbbell I can be at times... I just NOW thought of this, YEARS after the horse left the barn!)

I told Nigel, "I just moved down here from Seattle. I'm not moving back there to get discovered!"

Anyway, he said he would produce my demo for me at a steep discount because he, too, thought I had what it took to be a voice actor.

I never had it done.

When I got back to Seattle in 2003 I discovered that Nigel Neale had moved to Seattle too and was now teaching voiceover at the University of WA... so I went to another of his classes... and again he offered to make my demo tape for me.

I still didn't get it done.

I was so focused on finding a "real" job that I put the voiceover thing on the back burner -- so far back that I forgot all about it!

Well, as you know, after doing some "real jobs" for a number of years up here (secretary, administrative assistant, activity director, copywriter-for-hire, etc.) I decided to throw caution and low pay to the wind and hang my shingle at Elance as a freelance copywriter... be my own boss...

It has worked out moderately well. By this, I mean that I haven't starved to death yet.

Cleve reminded me again tonight about the voiceover option. If he hadn't, I probably would never have thought of it again. Incidentally, Cleve is also the guy who told me about Elance. He has been my biggest fan and most stalwart supporter/encourager since the day I met him. He works in the entertainment industry and knows his stuff... knows what will work and what won't creatively.. and he's telling me to GO FOR IT; don't let the door hit me in the butt on the way out!

There are a bunch of high profile video game producers in Seattle. They need teenage boy's voices and other voices... and Nigel says I'm BRILLIANT as Ariel the Mermaid and other cartoon characters, too... and I can do straight announcing, too...

So now I'm slapping myself upside the head. I'm self-employed! I can go to auditions and gigs in Seattle at the drop of a hat. I need to get that demo tape done.

Cleve even said he'll pick up the tab so I REALLY have no excuse!!

Voiceover artists get $400 an hour! I get $45/hour as a copywriter.

What am I waiting for? I don't have to have a "feast or famine" life. I can have an "add on" career that is part-time and very, very lucrative...

So guess what? I'm going to make a few calls on Monday (a long weekend is coming up) and see if I can find Nigel again and get this going.It's time!

What a kick it would be to make a living writing copy and books and voicing video games and radio and television commercials! Wish me luck and please keep me in your prayers...

Friday, November 5, 2010

WHOA!!! I just found out, by googling my name (which I do occasionally to see what else has popped up about me that I may want to know about) that the letter President Reagan wrote to me has been republished in the book REAGAN: A LIFE IN LETTERS. It's on page 69 of the hardcover edition. I still cherish his letter -- and the one I wrote that elicited a 100% personalized response, answering each topic point by point! I was FLOORED to get a response...

About Me

A
Pacific Northwest native, Kristine M. Smith transformed her copywriting
business from a struggling start-up to a going concern in near-record time.
Prior to launching her own copywriting business, Kris served as a fledgling copywriter
for a local on-hold script production company, where she won Employee of the
Quarter the last two quarters she worked there.

Kris’s
freelance writing career was launched by actor DeForest Kelley more than forty
years ago. It was Kelley and his wife Carolyn who encouraged Kris to try
Hollywood on for size, which she did from 1989 to 2003. Kris served as Mr.
Kelley’s personal assistant and caregiver during the final months of his life
and presented heartfelt sentiments about her mentor at Paramount Studios'
memorial service for him in 1999. She has written two books about him: DeForest
Kelley: A Harvest of Memories and The Enduring Legacy of DeForest Kelley:
Actor, Healer, Friend. An enhanced version of Harvest with a new title and 50+ pages of riotous additional anecdotes will debut during Star Trek's 50th Anniversary in 2016.

In
Hollywood, Kris served as an administrative assistant and secretarial floater
to writers, producers and—later—information technology professionals at various
studios. Most of her Hollywood career was spent at Warner Bros. Studios in
Burbank where she served as an executive secretary for the VP of Software
Development and as a Hardware Lease Administrator. Kris’s most notable creative
endeavor at Warner Bros. was writing the copy for an intranet website to help
newly-arrived secretaries learn the ins and outs of serving on the WB campus in
record time. The website earned her a monetary reward and the coveted (don’t
laugh!) Carrot Award (Bugs Bunny runs da joint, ya know!); the accompanying Certification
of Appreciation was co-signed by the head of the Human Resources Department and
her boss.

The
author of seven books, Kris’s sixth title, Serval Son: Spots and Stripes Forever
(You are responsible for all you tame)—a cautionary true story about what it’s
like to own, and be owned by, a wild cat for seventeen years—reached the #2 and
#4 spots at Amazon in two niche categories when it debuted in September 2011.

Kris’s
newest title, Settle for Best: Satisfy the Winner You Were Born to Be, is a chapter-by-chapter
breakdown of the twenty commonalities of millionaire philanthropists as
discerned by Napoleon Hill in his seminal 20th century work, Think
and Grow Rich. Each chapter contains words of encouragement and
instructions to entrepreneurs and anyone else who wants to leave a business,
personal, or family legacy that will resonate for generations to come. Settle
for Best stood at #1 in the Motivational Self-Help category at Amazon for three
days when it debuted.